Counter Strike: Global Offensive is a first-person multiplayer shooter video game. The game is the fourth of its Counter Strike series. It was released in year 2012 for multiple platforms like, Microsoft Windows, OS X, PlayStation and Xbox One. Counter Strike: Global Offensive was developed by the collaboration of Hidden Path Entertainment and Valve Corporation. Now, let’s just look into some of its history and what future holds for us.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO) expands upon the team-based action gameplay that it pioneered when it was launched 19 years ago.

2010, Idea of Counter Strike: Global Offensive

Counter Strike: Global Offensive is also known as the sequel of the games Counter Strike: Source and Counter Strike: 1.6. It was the year 2010, when CS: Source was at the end of its standing, an organization named as Hidden Path Entertainment decided to use the Counter Strike: Source in their video game consoles. Valve Corporation sensed the opportunity and decided to collaborate with the Hidden Path Entertainment for the development of the Counter Strike: Global Offensive.

Global Offensive development started in March 2010. Valve Corporation and the Hidden Path Entertainment decided to deliver the beta version in the very next year of the development and somehow, they accomplished what they committed. The idea of Counter Strike: Global Offensive was revealed to the general public in August, 2011.

2011 & 2012, the Beta Version and the Crucial Announcement

After the plan was shared to the public, Valve Corporation wasted no time and within 3 months they came up with the closed beta version of the game. However, the closed beta version was not available for everyone. During early 2011, the events in which Valve Corporation advertised CSGO, all the attendees were given a key. These keys were for the closed beta version Valve decided first to release. Valve didn’t pass the key to every other event, thus, around 10 thousand people initially played the closed beta version of the game and gave their remarks.

After the fixing of all the bugs reported by the closed beta version players and stabilizing the client and server connection, the closed version of the game was then, opened. Opening the closed beta version allowed more number of people to play the game.

In year 2012, Valve made the most important announcement. During the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), Valve announced the release date of Counter Strike: Global Offensive to be August 21, 2012. But, one month before the release, Valve decided to release the public beta version, where anyone could play the beta version of the game. Before releasing the public beta version, Valve invited all the previous Counter Strike professional players to come and play the game. Moreover, Valve took all the feedback given the professionals and tried to improve the game as much as they could before the final release.

Finally, on August 21, 2012, Counter Strike: Global Offensive was officially released on Microsoft Windows, OS X and PlayStation 3. The Linux version was left for later release on September 23.

2013 & 2014, Important Updates

After the release of the Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Valve has kept to update the game regularly. Valve introduced new maps, weapons and game modes.

In year 2013, the greatest update, known as “Arms Deal” came out. The update included new skins for the weapons. The items are obtained by unboxing some of the keys with-in the game. Some of the items were also paid. For that, Users can use Steam Workshop support, where they can buy multiple items for the game by using their credits. The paid items played an important role in trading and selling. Thus, a lot of gambling, trading and betting websites came into being for Counter Strike: Global Offensive.

Another important update in year 2014 came out. Valve introduced different music in the game. The update was knowns as “Music Kits”. This update changed the default in-game music and allowed the user to apply any of the custom music from the music kit. Valve also added the feature where users could actually borrow the kits. Kits could be sold as well in the international trading market.

2015, 2016 & 2017, Awards and Remakes

Counter Strike: Global Offensive received a positive response from the critics and the general audience, since it was released.

During the year 2015, the game won the award for “eSports Game of the Year”. Critics and other reviewers were happy with the link, the game had with the previous versions of the Counter Strike.

The year 2016 brought a lot of changes to the game. Two major remakes to the default map of the Counter Strike came out. Some other changes like, Prime Matchmaking and a lot of new items were also included in the updates. One of the most popular map “Nuke” was remade and released in February, 2016. The map was much more balanced after the update than before.

Another original map of Counter Strike known as “Inferno” was released again in October, 2016. According to Valve, the map required a lot of changes to be done. For that, Valve improved the visibility with-in the map and the mechanics of moving around in a group.

Prime matchmaking made a lot of changes to the game. In April, 2016, users had to connect their verified phone numbers to their account in order to participate into the matchmaking. Prime matchmaking was actually introduced to prevent the cheating or high-skilled players playing on low-level accounts to get the higher rank faster.

A lot of other changes in year 2016 also came out. New glove skins and the concept of graffiti were added to the game.

The year 2017 was the year for China. Valve collaborated with a well-named publisher “Perfect World” to release Counter Strike: Global Offensive in China. As Chinese citizen have their identification verified, they received the game for free and got their names in the prime matchmaking immediately. For this Chinese version, Perfect World launcher was used to run the game.

Later in 2017, a new update named as “Trust Factor” was announced. After the update, every player’s trust factor was counted, both, in-game and Steam actions. Valve calculated the trust factor by looking at the player’s time spent with-in the game, how many times the player has been reported, how many times the player has abandoned the game and what sort of communication is done during the game.

Important Tournaments

Ever since the release of the Counter Strike: Global Offensive, it has drawn an estimated 11 million players each month. The game is known to be one of the most player gathering and is very famous because of its numerous tournaments. Valve has organized so much tournaments itself.

The year 2018 and 2019 have proved to be the blasts for CS: GO. Valve itself has organized a lot of tournaments like, WESG, The Katowice Major 2019, FACEIT Major, ELEAGUE Major, CIS Minor Championship and PGL Major Krakow etc.

Other than Valve, there are plenty of other investors that are organizing Counter Strike: Global Offensive events. Some of the events like, ESL Pro League, Epicenter, Star Series, ESL One, FACEIT Major, Dreamhack Masters and Eleague Major.

Some of these tournaments are the majors and some of them are minors. But, all of them carry heavy prize pool and award some team ranking points.

The most Prestigious Event

Like other games, Counter Strike: Global Offensive doesn’t have any World Cup or world championship. However, there are plenty of Majors that matter the most throughout the year and are very responsible for the ranking of the teams. Every major is almost equally important but the WESG (World Electronic Sports Games) is considered to be the biggest event of them all. The event is held in China every year. The prize pool for the event is almost $1,500,000. Every year, 32 teams participate in the tournament and only one takes the title home.

The WESG 2018’s champions are Windigo Gaming. The Windigo Gaming defeated the AGO Sports 2-1, to claim the title. Although, Fnatic is known to be very strong when it comes to WESG, as they won the tournament in the year 2017 and were in the top four in year 2018.

As the whole prize pool was to be distributed among the top teams of the tournament, Windigo Gaming took home $500,000.

The Best Teams

Every Counter Strike: Global Offensive professional team is considered to be the best of them all. Now, let’s rank the teams with the number of majors they have won. Fnatic has won the most number of majors, that is, 6. The team consists of Krimz, JW, Xizt, Twist, Brollan and Jumpy as a coach. Fnatic has also won the biggest major of them all which is known as WESG.

A very popular website known as Gosugamers, ranks the CS: GO teams according to their current performance and number of points they have earned. According to the website, Astralis is ranked number 1 with 1548 points. Team Liquid secures the 2nd spot with 1430 points.

Astralis is one of the most consistent Danish squad there is. The team has defeated almost every other opponent in different majors and earned multiple titles. Astralis was also given the eSports Team of the Year award. The team comprises of Device, Dupreeh, Xyp9x, Gla1ve, Magisk and Zonic as coach. The total earning of the team is around $6,584,134.

During the year 2018, Astralis has won the most titles and earned the maximum money. The beginning of the year was not so helping but the Danes got their spark back and won the Dreamhack Masters Marseille 2018. The best player in the team, who is also been considered to be the World’s best player is Device.

Device has been awarded as the MVP of the tournament a lot of times. As a matter of fact, he broke the record for the most MVP titles with-in a year and created a new record of 7 MVP titles in one year.

The Year 2019

Counter Strike: Global Offensive is considered to be the game with most number of tournaments. Valve Corporation and other big organization invest a lot of money in its tournaments. Almost every month of the year is booked with an event. Events like, Intel Extreme Masters 13 has passed but some of the most amazing tournaments like ESL Pro League, Dreamhack Masters Dallas, eSports Championship Series and StarLadder etc.

The year 2019 has also seen an increase in the number of players every month. Last year, the average number of players in-game were around 28,000 to 30,000. But, the graph has raised to around 38,000 to 40,000 unique players.

The Future of Counter Strike: Global Offensive

Counter Strike: Global Offensive seems to have an amazing future. Valve Corporation has made the game free to play and are focusing on earning more from the in-game purchase items. The free to play feature has encouraged a lot of new players to download and join the community for free.

The prime matchmaking has reduced the amount of account buyers and cheating. That is why, more people are attracted towards the game.

From the last year, Battle Royale has taken over a lot of games. Games like, Fortnite, PUBG and many other, focus on Battle Royale. For that, Valve Corporation has announced the Battle Royale feature in the Counter Strike: Global Offensive. A new update which is known as “Danger Zone” has released with Battle Royale in it. Not only the general audience is impressed by this action of Valve, but the professional players are also showing more interest in it.

Valve is also focusing a lot on the in-game purchase items. The introduction of graffiti and providing new music in the game made the game even more interesting. Including more maps and customizing the previous one’s every now and then makes the game always new and pleasant to play.

Valve has also introduced new guns and some new skins for them in the new updates. Because of this much consideration towards the game, the number of unique players each month is not decreasing but increasing every other day, which is eventually leading towards the better future of the game.